The witch’s way (from Vampires of Rome)

This is an excerpt from my latest novel now out in paperback, kindle, nook and kobo.

Vampires of Rome

King Sumer smiled. “Did you tell her who we were?”

“What do you mean?”

“That I’m a king of old?”

I nodded, “Sure, I told her that you were a king!”

“And that we’re… vampiros?” he added.

“Oh certainly,” I quickly lied, convinced she’d guessed it anyway. I hoped it wasn’t an important issue, but added, “She asked me not to mention it again in her presence. She said she chooses to see all creatures under heaven as the same.”

King Sumer nodded pensively. Perhaps he believed me but he didn’t say anything. I hoped it didn’t matter.

I asked, “So tell me now how you turned me into a vampiro. I must know. How did the amulet play a part in it?”

He said, “After the ritual with the witch you will remember all things. You will even remember who you were in a past life and you will know the secret to how you came back after I had killed you so completely. You will remember what happened to you in the mountains at my castle, in the mountain graveyard. And you will tell me the secrets of it all. You weren’t able to before. Now maybe this time you will have some sight.”

“I have secrets?”

He nodded. “Secrets of magic.”

“Yes, I do remember a castle high in the mountains. So you won’t tell me now about how I became a vampiro? I remember I was in a grave. Something unusual happened about all that. I didn’t rest in peace then either.”

“I won’t need to tell you what happened in my castle. You will remember the grave… from the inside. You will remember all the other worlds from the inside. And you will tell me about the world beyond this world, from where we all first come. You will see time from the inside. I had hoped you would have learned all that at my castle. The ritual there could not have been any more extreme. Maybe we can learn it now, in this other way… the witch’s way.”

I took a deep breath. “What do we do until nightfall?”

He sat on the ground. He took a nap while I watched him breathe. At nightfall, he jumped up.

I said, “I want to bite your neck!”

“No.”

“I want to bite somebody!”

“Later.”

“I’m hungry!”

King Sumer gave me a scolding expression. “The soul must be fed first.”

I frowned.